Volume 78, No. 4 Winter 2015

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 1

Editorial Staff

EditorTina Harry

Catalog & Asst. Automation LibrarianThe University of Mississippi

tharry@olemiss.edu

Assistant EditorTracy Carr

Library Services Bureau DirectorMississippi Library Commission

tcarr@mlc.lib.ms.us

Copy Editor

Audrey BeachResource Librarian

Mississippi Delta Community Collegebeachgirl1796@gmail.com

News ReporterSarah Mangrum

Access Services Librarian / Assistant Clinical Professor

University of Southern MississippiSarah.Rials@usm.edu

Book Review EditorMichele Frasier-Robinson

Librarian for Education & PsychologyUniversity of Southern Mississippi

susan.frasierrobinson@usm.edu

MLA ReporterAntoinette Giamalva

Branch ManagerRidgeland Public Library

antoinette.giamalva@gmail.com

IndexerKristin Rogers

Electronic Resources & Discovery LibrarianThe University of Mississippi

kerogers@olemiss.edu

ContentsPresident’s Page .................................................................................................. 2Anne H. Augustus: Her Life, Her Books ........................................................ 3

Paul Pruitt Jr.Hancock County Library Unveils Card Campaign For Students ................ 8

Mary M. PerkinsUSM Libraries to Host 2nd Annual Institutional Repository Day ........... 10

Dawn SmithCamp ABC ....................................................................................................... 11

Charlotte MomanGoing Fiber ...................................................................................................... 12

Patty FurrPeople In The News ......................................................................................... 16News Briefs ....................................................................................................... 172015 MLA Annual Conference Wrap Up .................................................... 19

Molly McManusBook Reviews ................................................................................................... 22

Images of America: Long BeachStreams of Mercy: A Seasoned Southern Broad’s Musings & Meditations on God, Dogs and Pooperscoopering—in other words, LifeThe Rented MuleAftermath LoungeRIOT: Witness to Anger and Change Heartless

On the cover: “Book on the Hook” by Elizabeth Brooke Little, Florence High School. It was created for a library showcase of artwork. This demonstrates how reading is for everyone.

A Quarterly Publication of the Mississippi Library Association ©2015

ISSN 0194-388X

Mississippi Libraries is a quarterly, open access publication of the Mississippi Library Association (MLA). The articles, reports, and features herein represent viewpoints of their respective authors and are not necessarily the official options of the Association.In order to assure the widers possible audience for the work published in Mississippi

Libraries, the work is added, by contractual agreement, to one or more EBSCO Publishing databases. Mississippi Libraries is also indexed in Library Literature and Information Science Abstracts.For more informaton, visit http://misslib.org/publications

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 2

President’s Page2015 Executive Board

PresidentPatsy C. BrewerLibrary DirectorWaynesboro-Wayne County Library

Vice-PresidentMolly McManusSystems LibrarianU.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center

SecretarySelina SwinkBranch ManagerLake Public Library

TreasurerBlair BookerAssistant LibrarianHolmes Community College

Immediate Past PresidentAmanda Clay PowersCoordinator of Research ServicesMSU Libraries

ALA CouncilorEllen RuffinMcCain Library and ArchivesCurator, de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection

SELA CouncilorMelissa R. DennisHead of Research & Instruction ServicesUniversity of Mississippi Libraries

Section Chairs Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Section ChairJames B. Kennedy

Public Library SectionWil’Lani Turner

School Library Section ChairHolly Gray

Special Libraries Section ChairJoy Garretson

Trustees Section ChairJenny Box

For more information, visit:http://misslib.org/Executive-Board

Onward and upward is the cur-rent direc-tion of the Mississippi Library As-s o c i a t i o n with a vari-

ety of innovative ideas being imple-mented in 2015.

The year started with a letter of support from the President on be-half of the MLA Executive Board to Susan Cassagne, Executive Director of MLC, stating the necessity of pro-viding internet access in rural areas across the state with the installation of fiber in all public libraries. This measure is ongoing in the 2016 leg-islative budget year and academic, school, special and public librarians are urged to contact their local state legislators.

Membership in the Mississip-pi Library Association is at a peak with 609 members to date. MLA will host a membership table at the USM Children’s Book Festival being held April 6- 8, 2016 to reach the over 400 teachers and librarian at-tendees. The implementation of the ALA/MLA Joint Student member-ship has been a success with many students taking advantage of the $38.00 a year fee.

Online voting was approved the board in March and thanks to Jen-nifer Nabzdyk, implemented to save time and money for future elections.

A new Pinterest page was devel-oped by Antoinette Giamalva al-lowing members to share ideas such as National Library Week, Teen Tech Week, 2016 Summer Reading,

Library Card Sign-Up Month, etc.The annual conference was held

in Natchez with the theme “Stron-ger Together” and featuring keynote speaker Josh Hanagarne, General Session Speaker Todd Bol from Lit-tle Free Libraries, as well as many Mississippi librarians conducting workshops. A special thank you to Vice-President Molly McManus and her conference team for a job well done.

Also new for 2015 was the first Mississippi Book Festival at the state capitol attended by a large number of MLA members; a new editor, Tina Harry, was appointed by the board for Mississippi Libraries; a successful National Library Legis-lative Day was held in Washington; MLA was represented at the ALA Midwinter meeting in Chicago and the ALA Conference in San Francis-co; and new promotional materials were purchased by the board with the MLA logo.

Perhaps the most significant ac-complishment of the MLA Execu-tive Board was to approve a revised 96 page MLA Handbook which involved input from Section, Com-mittee, and Roundtable Chairs as well as numerous edits and reviews by board members.

It has been my honor to serve as the 2015 Mississippi Library Associ-ation President and I look forward to continuing to serve as the Past President on the Executive Board and also Chair of the Fiscal Manage-ment Committee for 2016.

Best wishes for a safe and Happy New Year,

Patsy C. Brewer

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 3

Anne H. Augustus: Her Life, Her BooksPaul Pruitt Jr.

Collection Development & Special Collections Librarian The University of Alabama

Over the past year, during visits to an antique shop in Columbus, I came across a number of books signed with the bold, legible signa-ture of Anne H. Augustus. Most of them dated back a hundred years or more; some clearly had been gifts, some passed down through her family, and some school books. Looking over the collection spread over a single shelf, I was struck by the fact that Anne Augustus must have had catholic tastes and a good deal of diverse knowledge. I placed her, mentally, among that first gen-eration in which college educations were available to women—a Missis-sippi version, so to speak, of Dor-othy L. Sayers’ character Harriet Vane. I wondered if Augustus had graduated from the “W”; I thought it likely that she had been an in-teresting person. Two or three at a time, I started acquiring her books. Then I began to investigate her life, in libraries and online. In what fol-lows, I’m trying to make sense of how Augustus’ life fit together, with special attention to books—the ones she definitely owned and those she probably owned.

Part I: Anne H. Augustus (1880-1976), an Incom-plete Biography

Anne Heard Augustus was born on September 28, 1880 in Noxubee County Mississippi, at her “ancestral home” near Macon.1 The county was

1 Anne Augustus’ obituary, Macon Beacon, July 8, 1976 [p. 1, col. 8].

part of the plantation-rich “prai-rie belt,” where African Americans outnumbered white people—in Noxubee by a ratio of roughly five to one. Her family had long been prominent; in 1834 her grandfather George Baldwin Augustus had been one of Noxubee’s first judges; he had subsequently served four terms as state senator. Her father, William Baldwin Augustus (1840-1901), was born in Alabama; but he too, was a public figure in Mississippi. An ar-dent secessionist, he had served as a private soldier in the 41st Mississip-pi Regiment. After Reconstruction ended in Mississippi, he was elect-ed to the legislature; in 1878 he was appointed as one of the first trustees of the Agricultural and Mechanical School (the ancestor of Mississippi State University).2

2 See Robert Lowry and William H. McCardle, A History of Mississippi, from the Discovery of the Great

W.B. Augustus married three times. After the death of his second wife in 1872, he married Kate Hoop-er Brantley (1842-1912), a relation of Alabama humorist Johnson Jones Hooper.3 W.B. and Kate would have six children, of whom Anne was the third.4 The years of Anne’s child-hood were prosperous ones for the family; W.B Augustus was appoint-ed in 1884 as one of the first mem-bers of the state Railroad Commis-sion at a salary of $2,500 per annum, a large sum for the time.5 There is no reason to doubt that Anne grew up in Macon with her siblings—closest perhaps to her sisters Kate Brantley Augustus (1881-1977) and Gertrude Augustus (1883-1942).6 Together they navigated all of the rites of passage common to small town children in the post-Recon-struction south. These would have included playing games with chil-dren her age, some of whom quite likely were African American; going

River (Jackson: R.H. Henry & Co., 1891), 544-547, for Noxubee County information and for the dates of office holding for George B. and W.B. Augustus. For W.B. Augustus’ secessionism, see draft of resolution by W.B. Augustus concerning secession (photocopy), in W.B. Augustus Papers, Special Collections Department, Mississippi State University Libraries; for his Civil War service, see www.ancientfaces.com. 3 See William Stanley Hoole, Alias Simon Suggs: The Life and Times of Johnson Jones Hooper (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1952), xxii, 39, 198 n. 43, n. 44; and see below.4 This information can be found under entries for William Baldwin Augustus and Kate Hooper Brantley Augustus on Ancestry.com. 5 Dunbar Rowland, Mississippi: Comprising Sketches of Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (Atlanta: Southern Historical Publishing Association, 1907), II: 500; and Biennial Reports of the Departments and Benevolent Institutions of the State of Mississippi for the Years 1884-1885 (Jackson: J.L. Power, 1886), 95.6 For Kate B. Augustus, see her obituary, Macon Beacon, December 22, 1977, For Gertrude Augustus, see entry under Gertrude Augustus on Ancestry.com.

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to school7 and to church with white children alone; a good deal of time spent reading; and also time devot-ed to studying family history, her neighbors, or observing nature and the seasons. Her childhood home, Macon would be the place to which she returned.

In 1901 “Annie” Augustus grad-uated with a bachelor’s degree from the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College (I.I. & C.) in Columbus, where she enjoyed her coursework in English grammar and literature, rhetoric, mathematics, Latin, and history.8 Inspired by professors and friends, she embarked upon a ca-reer as a schoolteacher, a soldier in the great Progressive-era drive to educate the South. But to be a civ-ilizer, often, is also to fight against the odds—what Eudora Welty meant when she told an interview-er that “teachers like those are all over the South—dedicated, and losing their battles, but not losing them every time.”9 Anne Augus-tus spent one year as “Mistress of a country school” in Noxubee Coun-ty, three years teaching high school in Macon, and another year as a high school teacher at West Point, Mississippi. Thereafter she was “teacher of the campus school” at the University of Mississippi, most

7 In 1888-1889, when Anne Augustus was in her grammar school years, Macon supported a ten-grade, ten-month public school for whites; there, Prof. W.F. Moncrieff presided over the education of 120 boys and 140 girls. See Edward Mayes, History of Education in Mississippi (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1899), 288. It is also possible that Anne was privately tutored.8 Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, 1901-1902, 3 (for professors in the named subjects and other subjects), 9. The I. I. & C. was the ancestor school of the Mississippi University for Women.9 Linda Kuehl, interviewer, “Eudora Welty and the Art of Fiction No. 47,” in Paris Review (Fall 1972) [Issue No. 55; http://www.theparisreview.org/back-issues/55].

likely a laboratory school run in coordination with the university’s teacher-training program. Having taken this job, she pursued studies toward a master’s degree in English with an additional concentration in mathematics. She served one year as “Reader in the English Depart-ment” and taught three summers of “normal work” at the university as an instructor of English grammar, rhetoric and literature. After some time spent completing her thesis, she received her M.A. in 1910.10

Augustus’ thesis, “Wordsworth and Bryant, A Comparative Study,” shows that she was fascinated with nature poetry. Her thesis was full of approving references to nature as teacher, to the forms of nature-wor-ship found in the works of her two poets, and to the serenity to be found in natural scenes.11 Anyone looking for further insight into Au-gustus’ sensibility should note her light-hearted compression of Word-sworth’s “The Tables Turned,” which included the lines “Up! Up! My friend, and quit your books;/ Why all this toil and trouble?” and “Books! ‘Tis a dull and endless strife:/ Come hear the woodland linnet.”12 She re-vealed her values as a teacher when she praised Wordsworth for his op-timism, for showing his readers “the type of manhood” that can “‘turn . . . necessity,’ however miserable it may 10 Anne H. Augustus to T.P. Scott, August 30, 1910, March 15, 1912, M276 (T.P. Scott Papers), University of Southern Mississippi Digital Collections (http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/arc/id/684 and http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/arc/id/689/rec/1). Anne Augustus’ obituary (supra n. 1) says that her master’s degree was in English and mathematics.11 Anne H. Augustus, “Wordsworth and Bryant, A Comparative Study” (M.A. Thesis, University of Mississippi, 1910), 1-2, 5-6, 7, 12, 16, 28, 30, 37.12 Ibid, 28. Augustus has left out several lines. For the text of the poem, see Mark Van Doren, editor, William Wordsworth, Selected Poetry (New York: Modern Library, 1950), 82-83.

be, ‘into glorious gain.’”13 In 1912, after two years of in-

quiring after the position, Augustus began her professorial career as an instructor at Mississippi Normal College in Hattiesburg.14 Working from a curriculum that she helped to design, she taught basic English courses, in addition to courses titled “Exposition and Argumentation,” “The English Sentence,” “Southern Authors,” “Plays of Shakespeare,” “Advanced Grammar,” “Nineteenth Century Poetry,” and “Studies in Tennyson.”15 During her Normal College years, she had every rea-son to add professional titles to her childhood and college books. She made use of several works of gram-mar, including Brooks’ English Com-position, Kimball’s Structure of the English Sentence, and Meiklejohn’s The English Language: Its Grammar, History, and Literature. Otherwise she probably collected works of lit-erature, especially poetry. In addi-tion to volumes by Wordsworth and Bryant, she owned volumes of Ten-nyson’s verse, as well as such anthol-ogies as Walter C. Bronson’s English Poems: The Nineteenth Century, and at least one collection of Shake-speare’s plays. Nor was Augustus likely to neglect Southern literature; her teaching text was Payne’s South-ern Literary Readings.16 13 Augustus, “Wordsworth and Bryant,” 48, 49-50; for the poem on which these passages are based, see Van Doren, William Wordsworth, Selected Poetry, “Character of he Happy Warrior,” 530-532.14 Supra n. 10. The Normal College was the ancestor school of the University of Southern Mississippi. See also Chester M. Morgan and Martha Dunagin Saunders, Treasured Past, Golden Future: The Centennial History of the University of Southern Mississippi (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), 20.15 Catalogue of the Mississippi Normal College, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Announcement 1913-1914 (Meridian: Dement Printing Company, 1913), 4, 6, 36-39.16 The titles mentioned are course requirements

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After five years in Hattiesburg, Augustus worked for a year at the Central High School of Memphis before landing as Professor of Latin and Associate in English at the West Tennessee Normal School.17 There her courses required her to make use of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Pliny the Younger’s Letters, and editions of Virgil and Cicero.18 Always versa-tile, having shifted the focus of her career, she threw herself into her work. Consider the W.T.N.S. Latin Club’s May 1924 performance of a two-part play, billed as “Odysseus and [the] Kiss of Aphrodite.” Au-gustus wrote and directed the “Od-ysseus” half of this toga-clad piece, which was a “dramatization of Ten-nyson’s ‘Lotos Eaters’ and ‘Ulysses,’ and adaptations of Homer’s Odys-sey.”19 Her scholarly work included an 1926 address before the Tennes-see Philological Society.20

After teaching in Memphis for ten years, Augustus taught in Ken-tucky as head of the Department of and can be found at supra n. 15, 37-39. Some likely editions are Stratton D. Brooks, English Composition, 2 vols. (New York: American Book Company, 1911-1912); Lillian Gertrude Kimball, The Structure of the English Sentence (New York: Cincinnati American Book Co., 1900); J.M.D. Meiklejohn, The English Language: Its Grammar, History, and Literature, American ed., rev. (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1906); Walter C. Bronson, English Poems: The Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1907); and Leonidas Warren Payne, Southern Literary Readings (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Company, 1913).17 Desoto, 1922 [Yearbook, West Tennessee State Normal School], 17; by 1922, Augustus had placed “Graduate Student, University of Wisconsin,” undated, on her resume. The West Tennessee State Normal School is the ancestor school of the University of Memphis.18 See, for example, the courses and readings listed in Bulletin: West Tennessee State Normal School, Memphis, Tennessee, Summer Quarter 1922 (Memphis [?]: State Board of Education, 1922), 28.19 Desoto, 1924, 76.20 “Philological Delegates Open First Session of Meet Today,” in The Sou’wester [student newspaper, Southwestern at Memphis], February 26, 1926 [p. 3]. The newspaper does not give the topic of her presentation.

Languages at Murray State Teachers College. She resigned in 193221 at the trough of the Great Depression and dropped out of (professional) sight. Her family papers include a 1938 letter to Augustus from the Mississippi-born teacher and I.I. & C. graduate Blanche Colton Wil-liams.22 This letter was addressed to her in Macon, where for many years Augustus would live with her younger sister Kate Brantley Augus-tus, longtime (1918-1954) Noxubee County Chancery Clerk.23 Each sis-ter would die at age 96—Anne in 1976, Kate in 1977.

During this long twilight, Augus-tus’ interests turned toward studies of southern history and literature. She began to gather family books (her Aunt Mary’s copy of Don Quix-ote, for example) as well as docu-ments pertaining to the life of her family’s connection, the “South-western humorist” Johnson Jones Hooper, author of the picaresque Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs. These she generously shared (by 1951) with University of Alabama librarian William S. Hoole.24 Other-wise, she took part in Macon’s cul-tural life—for instance, in the activ-ities of the Dancing Rabbit chapter of the DAR.25

Augustus lived in Macon for long enough to become a local institution, the sort of well-connected spinster one encounters in novels or movies. 21 The Shield, [Yearbook, Murray State Teachers College), 1931, 19; Minutes, Board of Regents, Murray State Teachers College, 155 (May 24, 1932); Macon Beacon, July 8, 1976.22 Blanche Colton Williams to Anne H. Augustus, August 1, 1938, in W.B. Augustus Papers. Augustus owned a copy of Williams’ A Christmas Book from the Department of English, Hunter College of the City of New York (Brooklyn: Comet Press, 1937).23 Supra n. 6.24 Hoole, Alias Simon Suggs, xxii, 196 n. 25, 197 n. 32.25 Supra, n. 1.

Though she had accustomed herself to other worlds—to academe, to a regional metropolis—there was no reason why she shouldn’t go home again. She illustrated that point, with only a hint of the outsider look-ing in, in an obituary she composed in 1960. Her subject, she said, had been possessed of beauty, charm, and grace; had introduced into her home the “glories of flower culture”; had kept up an active schedule in the local gardening club and in the “Noxubee United Daughters of the Confederacy.” Yet the lady’s chief concern, wrote Augustus, was that of service to her family. She had led a “sheltered” life—and Augustus notes (without apparent irony) that “most women would call this estate blessed”—yet her domestic sacrific-es were what constituted “her last-ing monument.”26

Part II: Anne Augustus’ Books: Space and Nega-tive Space

Augustus’ lasting legacy was not her private library, however sub-stantial. At times her shelves had housed books and documents gar-nered from the lawyers, politicians, and matriarchs to whom she was re-lated, as well as a personal collection of books read for preparation or pleasure—including novels, poet-ry, histories, and English and Latin grammars. Stored nearby were titles collected by Kate B. Augustus, who as a young woman had read roman-tic novels and works of philosophy.

Over the decades after the sis-ters’ deaths, it is not certain what

26 This text is available at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/h/a/Dwight-A-Sharpe-TX/BOOK-0001/0007-0003.html.

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happened to their books. Both obit-uaries mention three nieces, and it seems likely that the collection passed into the hands of one or more of these. That was nearly forty years ago, time for the secondary owners to grow old, for the books to lose their sentimental value. I was able to salvage ten books, fragments that are worthy of study for several reasons.

First, these books are physical objects illustrative of the aesthetics of book culture at the turn of the last century. Their inscriptions and marginalia seem to indicate sever-al categories of use: as (1) beautiful gifts; (2) relics of family history; (3) practical tools; or (4) escape read-ing. Since most of the books con-tain many pages of advertisements, they allow modern readers insight into the American book trade of the period.27 The fact that the dates of publication are mostly from the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-turies may indicate that the books were later saved because they were old, and therefore heirlooms; or that the Augustus sisters’ collecting hab-its changed with the onset of such events as the Great War or the Great Depression.

The books are a rich source of information on the inner life of their collector, Anne H. Augustus. Little of the biographical informa-tion above came directly from her books; but it is clear to anyone with access to them that Augustus’ books reflect and explain the incidents and concerns of her life. They offer an authentic pathway to her inner life. Now this notion of a person’s library as a type of autobiographi-cal document is not a new one. In 27 In the bibliography below, bracketed page numbers are typically pages of advertisements.

my professional home, the Bounds Law Library, distinguished scholars have made use of the reconstructed library of Justice Hugo L. Black of the United States Supreme Court.28 Anything may be saved, Crusoe-like,

28 See especially Roger K. Newman, Hugo L. Black, a Biography (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994), 445-456, and passim.

from the flotsam of famous lives—but seldom from the wreckage left by more ordinary folk, however in-teresting. Perhaps the point is that, in these fading days of the book, we should do what we can to keep such collections together.

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Ten Books Once Owned by Anne Heard Augustus and Her Relatives, in Order by Date of Publication

Note: There are references below to three bookplates: Bookplate 1: Coat of Arms, with “Ex Libris Au-gustus.” Bookplate 2: Torch-bearer in classical garb. Printed “Ex Libris,” with space for signature. Book-plate 3: Seated woman (goddess?) in classical garb, holding lamp, be-fore kneeling man who offers a box. Printed “Ex Libris,” with space for signature.

1. William Morris. The Earthly Paradise, a Poem. From 3rd London ed. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1868. 17.8 cm. x 12.3 cm. Pp. [6], 430, [14]. Bookplate 1. Signed on half-ti-tle page: “Anne Augustus.” Volume 1 of 2. Probably a book that came to Anne Augustus through her family, possibly read by her when she was a child. A writer and designer, Mor-ris was a mainstay of England’s “arts and crafts” movement. The Earthly Paradise contains retellings of classi-cal myths as well as poems set in an unspecified heroic time. For themes of women’s nobility and power; note “Psyche and Cupid,” “The Love of Alcestis” and “The Lady of the Land.”

2. Joseph Deharbe, S.J. A Full Catechism of the Catholic Religion. Rev. John Fander, trans. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 1881. 17.5 cm. x 12 cm. Pp. vi, 327, [1]. Back free end-sheet cut. Bookplate 1. Inscriptions, front free end-sheet: “Mary Mildred Brant-ley (Mrs. Johnson J. Hooper)”; and “M.M. Hooper from Mrs. Biscoe.” Page 271 turned down; this page deals with the impact of sins upon one’s holy communion. This volume

is the only one of this collection that is traceable to Augustus’ Hooper connections.

3. James, McPherson, trans. The Poems of Ossian. Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885. 16 cm. x 10.7 cm. [Duo-decimo.] Pp. viii, 294. Bookplate 1. Signed on half-title page: “Anne H. Augustus, December 20, 1903.” And “from Mrs. A.E. Heard.” Pur-ported renditions of a Celtic bard, Ossian (first appearing in 1760) was a great literary hoax. Wordsworth was much affected by these poems; a Wordsworth quote appears on this volume’s title page.

4. Mrs. Arthur J. Barnes. Com-plete Caligraph Instructor: Or How to Become Expert in Typewriting. St. Louis: Arthur J, Barnes, Publisher, 1890. 27 cm. x 20 cm. Pp. xiv, 160, [2]. This battered volume boasts multiple signatures on front and back paste-down sheets and title page. Most are of “Gertrude B. Auus-tus”; one of “Kate B. Augustus”; two of “Olive Jones, I. I. & C., Columbus, Miss”; one, partially written over, of Anne W. Heard, I.I. & C., September 28, 1895.” A narrow strip of tape on the back cover is signed “Gertrude Augustus.” There are various mark-ings and notes, including one on the left margin of the last (unnumbered) page of the book: “Annie, don’t for-get Sunday afternoon May 24, ’96.” Based on the date, this Annie is most likely Anne W. Heard. Pinned with a straight-pin to p. 48 is a practice form for solicitation of employment (in purple typescript), headed “Co-lumbus Mississippi, May 1, 1901” and “Messrs. Bond and Baker, Pub-lishers and Book-dealers. Boston, Massachusetts.”

5. Sara E. Husted Lockwood. Les-sons in English, Adapted to the Study

of American Classics: A Text-Book for High Schools and Academies. Bos-ton: Ginn & Company, 1892. 19 cm. x 13 cm. Pp. xix, 403, [8; advertise-ments, numbered 14-20], [1]. Front free end sheet(s) torn out. Back free end-sheet cut but intact. Numerous signatures of “George B. Augustus, Macon, Mississippi,” some dated 1893. On front pastedown end sheet is a large drawing of a running horse pulling a two-wheeled sulky or cart, driven by a man wearing a tall hat. On the rear pastedown sheet is a large drawing of a bird snapping at an insect; see also p. 266. On p. 267 are a small crossed-out drawing and the words “Mr. Roozter” at the head of the page. The volume con-tains many marks and notes, some of which may be in Anne Augustus’ hand. Note (pp. 380-388) the biogra-phy of William Cullen Bryant, con-taining a reference (p. 384) to Bry-ant’s 1849 visit with Wordsworth. Augustus may have held on to this volume for its family associations or as an example of a well-conceived textbook.

6. Edward S. Ellis. 1000 Mytho-logical Characters Briefly Explained, Adapted to Private Schools, High Schools and Academies. [Orig. copy-right 1895.] New York: Hinds & Noble, Publishers, 1899. 16.8 cm. x 13 cm. Pp. 146, [20]. Photograph, statue of Diana, inset on cover. Bookplate 2. Signed on bookplate, “Anne H. Augustus.” Same signature on rear pastedown. Introduction discusses aspects of philological criticism (pp. 7 ff.). Some markings; see p.47 for a joke dependent upon a Latin pun.

7. William M. Thackeray. The Yellowplush Papers. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company, c. 1899.

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15.8 cm. x 11 cm. Pp. 226, [36]. Cornflower blue cover, with inset photograph of a bridge over a stream, woods in background. Bookplate 1. Included at end are copious ad-vertisements for various series, in-cluding Altemus’ illustrated “Vade-mecum” titles. It seems clear (see below) that Anne and Kate Augus-tus favored these inexpensive (40¢), brightly colored volumes. Written in an exaggerated cockney dialect, Yel-lowplush features characters that are little more than confidence men—not unlike Simon Suggs.

8. Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Undine. Philadelphia: Henry Al-temus Company, c. 1899. 16.8 cm. x 11.2 cm. Pp. 174, [16]. Cover is white with a floral design. Colored fron-tispiece. Signed on front free end sheet, “Kate B. Augustus, May 4 ’05.” Home-made dust jacket of brown paper cleverly stitched together with thread; torn along spine. On front of

dust jacket is written, “UNDINE—a beautiful idyl—a delicate piece of romantic fancy.” First published in 1811 in German, Undine was a fairy tale in which a water sprite seeks a human love.

9. Sir Edwin Arnold. The Light of Asia. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company, n.d. [Original published as early as 1850.] 15.8 cm. x 11 cm. Pp. 239, [34]. Sky-blue cover with floral designs. Black and white fron-tispiece and illustrations. Signed on front paste-down sheet, “Kate B. Augustus.” This work presents Bud-dhist doctrine in the form of English poetry.

10. Charles H. Chaffin. How to Study Pictures, By Means of a Se-ries of Comparisons of Paintings and Painters . . .New York: The Centu-ry Company, 1912. 21.8 cm. x 15.5 cm. Pp. xv, 513. Bookplate 3. Signed on bookplate, “Anne H. Augustus.” Same signature on back paste-down

end sheet. Gilded top edge. Au-gustus marked passages in the in-troduction (p. xiv), including the author’s statement that he was not seeking “to suggest that one [paint-er] is more admirable than anoth-er; but to stimulate interest and the faculty of observation.” At the top of p. 3 Augustus’ annotation confuses Shelley and Keats. On the bottom of p. 3, Augustus copied, with some omissions portions of two stanzas of Wordsworth’s 1819 poem “Peter Bell.” See p. 385 for markings indi-cating an interest in Victorian paint-er-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The volume has laid-in newspaper and magazine clippings, all of artistic subjects. Someone has used this vol-ume until the text block is almost detached from the binding.

Dedicated to the memory of R.R.P., and to teacher-scholars like her.

The Hancock County Library System embarked on a library card campaign to ensure that all students in Hancock County obtain valid li-brary cards by the end of the 2015 school year.

“Why do we think a library card is so important in a child’s education?” asked Courtney Thomas, Hancock County Library System Executive Director. “We, as educators and the-orists of reading, know that children learn to read by reading, and a free

Hancock County Library Unveils Card Campaign For Students

Mary M. PerkinsPublic Affairs/Development Officer

Hancock County Library System

Students were treated to a special story hour.

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 9

library card gives them access to lit-erally thousands of books.”

“The more children read, the more likely they will develop posi-tive attitudes toward reading,” said Dr. Rebecca Ladner, Superinten-dent of the Bay-Waveland School District. “Furthermore, if parents utilize the resources their public li-brary offers, it will further support the education of our students, today and tomorrow.”

In partnership with the school districts, this membership cam-paign placed a library card into the hands of children across Hancock County in an effort to nurture a love for reading, ignite a habit of life-long learning, and educate children about the free access to books and learning available at their local Han-cock County library branch.

The campaign began at the Wave-land Public Library, with Waveland Elementary School students touring the library, learning what resources were available to them at their local library, and were given a behind-the-scenes look at how the library system processes items.

Travel to the libraries by First Stu-dent buses has been cosponsored by the Leo Seal Family Foundation, the Library Foundation of Hancock County and the First Student Bus Company.

More than 600 students reg-istered for library cards, and the fourth grade class at North Bay El-ementary had 100% participation in the campaign. They received a pic-ture of their class on a library read poster, a pizza party and a free dress day at school.

Students were told about the resources available at the library through the Reference Department.

The Fourth Grade Class at North Bay Elementary had 100% participation in the Kids Library Card Campaign, and their picture was placed on a READ poster in the library.

First published in the The Sea Coast Echo newspaper.Photographs by Mary M. Perkins.

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 10

University Libraries at Southern Miss will host Institutional Reposi-tory (IR) Day on April 28 and 29. IR Day will feature speakers, panel dis-cussions, and workshops that will address topics ranging from the ba-sics of IRs to new ideas for longtime IR managers. The presentations will also include speakers who use a va-riety of different IR platforms, thus allowing attendees to compare the different options that are available to them.

“Institutional repositories are a powerful tool that allow a univer-sity to take the research and schol-arship produced at the institution and present it before a global au-dience. Works that were once con-fined to a bookshelf or disk can now be accessed around the world, and IRs have played a tremendous role in making this possible. IR Day is a great opportunity for us to teach others about the value of IRs to their campuses by highlighting several of the success stories we’ve experi-enced with our own repository, Aq-uila.  We were honored to welcome Marilyn Billings, one of the nation's preeminent librarians in the field of scholarly communication, to South-ern Miss as our keynote speaker last year, and we are excited about build-ing on that momentum this year as Rick Anderson from the University of Utah, another preeminent voice

in scholarly communication, joins us as this year’s  keynote speaker,” said Josh Cromwell, University Li-braries’ Scholarly Institutional Re-pository Coordinator. 

Rick Anderson, Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources and Col-lections at the University of Utah, will serve as the keynote speak-er.  Anderson earned his B.S. and M.L.I.S. degrees at Brigham Young University. In 2014, his book Buying and Contracting for Resources and Services: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians was published by Ne-al-Schuman.  Anderson was identi-fied by Library Journal as a “Mover & Shaker” – one of the “50 people shaping the future of libraries” in 2005.  He was elected president of the North American Serials Interest Group in 2008 and named an ARL Research Library Leadership Fellow for 2009-10. In 2013 he received the HARRASSOWITZ Leadership in Library Acquisitions Award and was invited to give the Gould Distin-guished Lecture on Technology and the Quality of Life at the Universi-ty of Utah. In 2015 Anderson was elected President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing and is a popu-lar speaker on subjects related to the future of scholarly communication and research libraries.

IR Day’s schedule of events will include a meet and greet with post-er presentations at the host hotel on Thursday evening. Fridays’ sched-ule will begin with the keynote ad-dress followed by a panel discus-sion. Following lunch, provided by

University Libraries, participants will be able to attend three differ-ent concurrent sessions. University Libraries is accepting proposals for the concurrent sessions as well as the Thursday evening poster pre-sentations. The deadline for submis-sion was December 15, and more information can be found at http://www.lib.usm.edu/irday/proposals.

USM Libraries to Host 2nd Annual Institutional Repository Day

Dawn SmithAssistant to the Dean for Publicity and Outreach

The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries

Aquila, Southern Miss’ Institu-tional Repository, is an open access digital repository containing schol-arly works created by the Universi-ty’s faculty, staff and students. Aq-uila also hosts digital journals and newsletters published by the Uni-versity, as well as information and resources from events hosted by the University. The majority of submis-sions to Aquila have open access availability and are indexed, making them highly discoverable through internet search engines, such as Google, thereby extending the Uni-versity’s scholarly output to a wider audience.

For more information or to regis-ter for IR Day, visit http://www.lib.usm.edu/irday.

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 11

Camp ABCA Preschool Literacy Program at the Jackson Hinds Library System

Charlotte MomanAssistant Director of Public Services

Jackson Hinds Library System

The origins of Camp ABC grew out of our concern to help preschool children be better prepared to enter school, as well as to help ensure that future third graders meet the stan-dards of the Literacy Promotion Act, which mandates that all third grade children read on grade level in order to pass to the fourth grade. Our li-brary system is located in an area where many children begin school without the necessary elements that are important to their success. In the Jackson Public School system, students face a 60% graduation rate from high school, and we believed that instruction based in the public library system could greatly benefit preschool children.

One of our children’s staff mem-bers had a teaching background which included experience in how to teach preschool phonics. After learning more about the program, we believed that this approach could offer a significant advantage both in teaching children how to sound out words and also in giving them a better foundation for writing and spelling success. In addition to the instruction, we incorporate many fun activities based on phonics to help them stay excited and interest-ed in the instruction.

Here are some of the basics we

cover: pronouncing the letters from A-Z along with their sounds, count-ing the numbers from 1-100, and learning the days of the week and the months of the year.

Our curriculum includes an in-dividual book focused on each let-ter of the alphabet. This approach is consistent with preschool skills such as identifying objects, listen-ing to a story and answering the simple questions. The sequence of letters that we teach is as follows: C,O,G,A,D,S,L,I,T,F,E,H,U. All the activity for these letters require easy motor skills. The alphabet letter C is taught first as it can be the base for recognizing so many other letters and numbers.

During the middle of the six-week session, the technique of blending letters together is introduced. This technique involves saying the sound of the letter we are teaching and not the name. Only the hard sounds of letters are introduced at this stage. C is kh, G is gh, E is eh, U is uh, I is ee’. To read a word, we teach the children to pronounce each letter’s sound and then join each of these sounds together as they occur in the word.

The vowels a, e, i, o, u are intro-duced with their sounds. Since all five have similar sounds, great care is used in this part of the instruction. We teach each child that no word in the English language can exist

without at least one of these vowel letters. This seems to make the chil-dren curious, and we ask them to dig in the books which they have at home to see if they can discover any word without a vowel. Prepositions: is, in, on, up, down, under are intro-duced, as well as the word, “the” as an article.

It is key to the success of this program that reading and writing always go together. Each day we have writing sessions following the Palmer’s handwriting guide. We guide each child in the correct way of holding a pencil and writing each letter. This is crucial instruction, as this is the age where we can easily make this instruction into a habit or break any bad habits which a child may have learned on their own. It takes great patience to be consistent with the rules and apply them in a positive way.

Our writing rules include: •Always write letters from the

top to bottom line. •Uppercase letters must start

from the top line, and lowercase letters always start from the middle dotted line. There are a few special lower case letters which begin from top line.

•It is very important for each child to touch the lines as they begin to write the letters.

If the instructor is patient, in the course of about six weeks’ time

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 12

using 2-3 lessons per week, the four and five year old students will mas-ter the material. These simple rules play a very important role in each child’s chances of success in school. By starting your own Camp ABC at your library, you will soon find that you can help many children begin school with the tools that they need to progress rapidly to reading

success. By teaching phonics, chil-dren soon learn to sound out words on their own, which gives them a true advantage as they begin to rap-idly master a larger vocabulary.

For more information about Camp ABC or to visit Camp ABC instructional session, please feel free to contact Charlotte Moman, As-sistant Director of Public Services,

Jackson Hinds Library System. She can be reached by email at cmo-man@jhlibrary.org

The Jackson Hinds Library Sys-tem provides library and informa-tion services to a 245,000-person service area in the City of Jackson and Hinds County, Mississippi. We opE-Rate eight big city urban librar-ies and seven rural county branches. This variety of locations and sizes has always made providing reliable, high-speed Internet services to our customers a difficult challenge. Pro-viding the highest quality of Internet service has been one of our highest priorities, but on our own, we did not have the expertise to design and deploy a state-of-the-art fiber optic network, and up until recently no money was available through the E-Rate program to make the equip-ment purchases we needed to build the network. Due to our recent use of a consultant, our library system was able to leverage our E-Rate funding to take advantage of the new Category Two E-Rate funding to build the network that our cus-tomers have needed at a price that

we can afford. This article details some of the process that we used to provide an all fiber optic network to all 15 of our library branches.

We currently operate a net-work of 375 public access and staff computers. Our 241 public access computers provided an astonishing 331,000 individual Internet sessions for our customers last year. Demand at all of our libraries for Internet access is high. We run all of our public access computers on the En-visionware reservation system, and there is often a wait to use a public computer, particularly in the rural branches. Demand for services is particularly high in the late after-noon and early evening. The public access computers provide a critical link for our patrons, many of whom do not own a computer or have sub-scription Internet service in their homes. Contrary to some belief, our customers are not just using the In-ternet for checking their Facebook accounts. A recent survey of com-puter users revealed that 58.22% of them use our computers for em-ployment searching and online job

applications. Another 53.2% report that our computers are their only access to email communication, and another 23.2% use our computers to take online classes. While 35.2% do use computers for checking Face-book or other social media sites, most of our customers are using them to improve their economic position by seeking jobs, going to school and completing school as-signments online.

Demand for bandwidth at all 15 libraries has always been strong, but with the advent of laptop programs for high school students, demand has significantly increased. After 3:00 PM, the number of tablets, lap-tops and smart phones being used by students in our libraries adds significantly to our bandwidth de-mand, and our current service often lags behind or slows. Students who are given laptops in 9th grade depend on the library for the bandwidth to access and complete homework as-signments. Unfortunately the In-ternet service providers that we had used for years were not able to give our patrons the kind of bandwidth

Going FiberOne Mississippi Public Library’s Experience in Using a Consultant to

Leverage E-Rate FundingPatty Furr

Executive Director Jackson Hinds Library System

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 13

and reliability that we believe is so important to the student’s success. We knew that we needed to make a change, but by ourselves, we could not have planned or envisioned the network to meet this new demand.

Our existing Internet services for the past many years have been split between two different com-panies. Eleven of our libraries, which include our urban branch-es, were receiving service from one of the well-known consumer ISP companies that also operates our local cable television service. Our monthly cost for the 11 city libraries was an affordable $1768.05/month, but the service we were receiving was very unsatisfactory. The capac-ity per branch that we were offered on the current ISP was advertised as ideal for a small business with three computers, and despite many requests, we were not offered any other kind of commercial service as a business customer. This is despite the fact that many of our libraries have 25-30 computers sharing that one connection and well over 50 computers at our downtown head-quarters location. We also had no dedicated bandwidth at all with this ISP. While the company told us that bandwidth could go as high as 100 mbps, it could also vary and drop to 2 mbps with no warning. This re-sulted in very poor service, particu-larly in the late afternoon when the service could drop or slow down to a crawl right in the middle of our bus-iest demand. As for service requests, an average of one or two branches per month would have their service fail completely, and often the nor-mal Internet service was often not restored for 12-18 hours. This was particularly frustrating.

The other four libraries, which were the most isolated branches, were on the state network AT&T system. They each had copper T-1 lines subscribed through the state library network. The service for these libraries with 6-8 public ac-cess computers each was $2609.4 a month or $652.35 a library for 1.54 Mbps service. Many times in the afternoon the service slows to an absolute crawl, and the results were not much better than DSL for most users. Online job applications timed out over and over for custom-ers, and they were forced to retype the same information into a form time after time. As you can imagine, this has caused enormous frustra-tion, especially since our libraries are often the only location in a small community where a public comput-er is available. We did explore an up-grade option on the state network. If we had decided to put all fifteen libraries on the state MPLS network with fiber service, the cost would have been $19,245 per month for 10 Mbps per month service. Even with the E-Rate reimbursement, the costs for our library system would have been very high, and the 10 Mbps service was not the improvement in speed and bandwidth that we felt we needed to have.

At the same time that we were evaluating our current Internet ser-vices, some personnel changes, in-cluding a much-deserved retirement for our former E-Rate librarian and the departure of our IT supervisor, left us without a single employee experienced in handling the E-Rate funding. We had no one to file the annual E-Rate applications. We had roughly 2-3 weeks to find someone with the knowledge and ability to

submit our applications for con-tinuing our normal services. We reached out to one consultant, but our 15 branch application was more than his time schedule would allow. Thankfully, through asking around to several telecom contacts we had, we were able to locate the Rod-abough Education Group, a highly experienced husband and wife team with over 40 years combined expe-rience in the telecomunications in-dustry and over 25 years combined experience in E-Rate submission for schools. For what we believed to be a very reasonable cost of about 3% of our E-Rate award, they were not only willing to submit our complex E-Rate applications, but also to help us completely rethink our network. This was a very important part of the services that we needed, but without the changes in personnel, we might never have thought of employing a consultant to help us design a new network and seek the E-Rate funds to pay for it. The Rodaboughs not only helped us design a completely new, state-of-the-art fiber optic net-work using both Category One and Category Two E-Rate funds, they helped us walk through the entire process, and made the experience stress-free for our library staff. In-terestingly, many of our preconcep-tions about Internet service in small towns turned out to be totally un-true. We had always believed that we had to split the four small county libraries off on AT&T because we did not believe that any other com-pany would provide service to these rural areas. Our consultants told us that the telecom companies will buy service from each other, if needed, and that we should seek one uni-fied 15 branch network and include

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 14

the rural areas in the system quote. Thus, our new network design start-ed with deciding to bid out all 15 libraries and let the telecom com-panies decide how to provide the Internet service to the most remote branches.

Our consultants also strongly en-couraged us to request Category Two funding to purchase new switches, routers, wireless access points and a much-needed state-of-the-art leased VOIP phone service using category 1 funding. It is not possible due to space restraints in this article to dis-cuss the recent changes in the USAC (Universal Services Administrative Company) E-Rate funding that now make it possible for libraries to pur-chase switches, routers and wireless access points and the fiber optic cabling to connect their computers to the network. (More information can be found at the USAC introduc-tory page at http://www.usac.org/sl/.) Suffice it to say, that the recent USAC changes are now providing vital money for schools and libraries to purchase this equipment for the first time in many years under the Category Two program. Our con-sultants urged us to apply for the equipment funds while it was avail-able this year. We eventually found out that 100% of all equipment re-quests under Category Two were funded by USAC this year, and if we had not applied, we would not have received the benefit of the Category Two funding to buy the new equip-ment we needed to have a state-of-the-art fiber optic network. An-other big bonus for our system was that E-Rate category 2 funds will not only pay for the equipment, but will also pay for installation, configura-tion and ongoing management of

the equipment. Our system does not have a network engineer and having help to pay for those high dollar en-gineer hours was a tremendous help for our system. Without the consul-tants, we would have never thought to request these additional category 2 services, and it dropped the cost of building the network significantly.

What services did the consultants actually provide? 1) They envisioned a completely different, genuinely high-speed fiber optic network that would offer our patrons the kind of speed and reliability that we had al-ways dreamed of providing to them; 2 )They created complex RFPs (re-quests for proposals) for all of the various components of the funding which included the traditional In-ternet services, installation of fiber optic cabling into the communica-tions closets, the Category 6 copper cabling inside the building to all 375 of our public and staff computers, and the detailed specifications for all new equipment including switches, routers, wireless access points and the specifications for the Hosted VOIP phone service that we want-ed; (E-Rate funding cannot be used for the purchase of VOIP phone sys-tems, but it will allow funding for a Hosted VoIP Service); 3) Once we released the RFP, the consultants conducted the two-day long tour of all 15 libraries that was required for any vendor who was going to bid on any of the services; 4) They answered all technical questions for each vendor who decided to bid; 5) They guided us through legally ad-vertising the bids both to newspa-pers and on the state bid website; 6) They helped us answer all vendor questions which we posted to our website, and they were present for

the bid openings from six different companies and the recording of the bids; 7) They analyzed the bids to make sure that the companies were meeting all of the specifications of the RFP; 8) After the winners were chosen, they worked with each of the different companies to coordi-nate the Category One installations of fiber into each library building. 9) Even after the bids were resolved, the consultants continued with us answering questions from USAC about the complex Category Two E-Rate applications that we submit-ted. Interestingly, only a few items were disallowed by USAC from our original application, and these were some relatively unimportant main-tenance contracts which would have covered some of the equipment that was being proposed.

What did we receive for our ef-forts to completely redesign our online services using a consultant? The library is currently upgrad-ing all libraries to 1 Gbps Wide Area Network with 200 Mbps ded-icated assured bandwidth deliv-ered to Welty Library (HQ) over a newly created Wide Area Network (WAN). The system has the ability to upgrade the WAN connections to 10Gbps and upgrade the Internet pipe to 1Gbps.  Basically the Jack-son Hinds Library System received 100 times the connectivity and 20 times the dedicated Internet access for approximately half the cost of the new state MPLS network. We do not expect to need more than the 200Mbps this year, but we like the flexibility that the provider can pro-vide to upgrade the service within 1 week of the notification if we do want to upgrade.  We also received internal copper cat 6 cabling for

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 15

all 15 branch libraries with all new switches and routers to connect the LAN and all new wireless access points. We expect to have the capac-ity to handle all of the after-school laptop traffic, as well as the demand for ever-increasing services at all of our locations in the future. We were informed on December 3rd, 2015 that our Category Two appli-cations had been moved to the sta-tus of “final review” and that the commitment for the Category Two services would be released with the next wave of funding. Needless to say, we were thrilled to hear that al-most all of the requests we submit-ted would be funded, thanks to the hard work and expertise of our con-sultant team. The fiber optic cabling has already been installed at each of our 15 libraries, and we antici-pate completing the installation of the cabling in each building to each computer and putting the entire sys-tem online by the end of March.

Once the fiber network is in-stalled, we anticipate installing our new leased VOIP phone system to connect our branches shortly thereafter. Currently, we are paying $2993/month for voice services for the 15 locations plus an additional $170/month for long distance.  Most of the phone systems in the 15 librar-ies were antiquated and barely limp-ing along. The equipment to replace a phone was so antiquated that we had to buy them on eBay. The new CSpire hosted VOIP service will cost $3059.64/month which is ap-proximately what we are currently paying for our very outdated AT&T system.   We are leasing each desk handset at a cost of between $1.00 and $4.00 per handset per month. Most of our long distance calls will

be free, and we will have 4 digit di-aling to all of our branches. We will retain some landlines for our secu-rity system, fire alarms and fax ma-chines, as calls from these systems must have a dedicated landline to work properly.

To recap the awards for our Cat-egory One funding (Internet, cir-cuits, VoIP and cellular service), we received a 90% reimbursement rate based on our free lunch pro-gram. Our overall total funding is $210,109.17 before reimburse-ment and our total library yearly cost after E-Rate reimbursement is $21,010.92. For this cost we have a state-of-the-art fiber optic network that connects all 15 of our libraries and gives us the reliability, speed and bandwidth that our customers need, new Hosted VoIP phone ser-vice with all the new features and functionality, and cellular phone service.

For our Category Two expens-es, the cost of all the equipment and services for all 15 libraries is $308,352.10 before the E-Rate reim-bursement. At the 85% reimburse-ment rate from USAC, the cost of having all new switches, routers, wireless access points and fiber optic cabling inside and outside of our buildings will cost us $46,252.81, which is a one-time investment for this year only. This amount covers the current number of computer drops in each building plus an addi-tional 10-15% in reserve computer drops for expansion in the future.

Now that we have been through the process of using a consultant for leveraging E-Rate funding, I would strongly recommend it to other pub-lic library systems. Few librarians, even those with an IT background,

have the technical knowledge to plan a network of this complexity, draft the RFP documents for bidding, an-swer the questions of the vendors and act as the expert answering re-quests for information from USAC. Using a consultant made it very easy for us to have just the right amount of technology to run our library system efficiently without spend-ing money that was not necessary. The cost of hiring the consultant was well worth the money that we invested into the venture, and the consultants have been training my staff to handle the future E-Rate ap-plications when they are not needed any longer. No one can predict how long the Category Two equipment money will be available for libraries and schools through USAC. I be-lieve that every public library that needs this equipment should strive to apply for the fiber optic cabling, switches, routers and wireless ac-cess points that they need while the funding is still available, and public libraries that need the speed and bandwidth of a state-of-the-art fiber optic network should consid-er employing a consultant to plan a new network and successfully guide the applications through the USAC process from the preparations of the RFPs to the awarding of the funding and installation of the equipment. While we had to hire a consultant due to key staff retiring and leaving, we feel that the decision to do so was one of the best decisions we could have made, and we strongly recom-mend these services to others.

For more information, please feel free to contact Patty Furr, Execu-tive Director, Jackson Hinds Library System at pfurr@jhlibrary.org or by phone at 601-968-5825.

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 16

Sarah MangrumAccess Services Librarian / Assistant Clinical Professor

University of Southern Mississippi

Nan Crosby (pictured left) re-tired as the Branch Manager of the Ridgeland Public Library with the Madison County Library System in October 2015. She has worked with the library for 25 years and has en-joyed her time as the branch manag-er. She plans on still being an active patron and volunteer for libraries.

—◆—Greg Johnson, co-author of 100

Books Every Blues Fan Should Own (Rowman & Littlefield 2014), re-ceived the Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Re-search in the category of Best His-torical Research in Blues, Gospel, Rhythm & Blues from the ARSC.

—◆—Antoinette Giamalva is the new

Branch Manager for the Ridgeland Public Library with the Madison County Library System. She received her MLIS from University of South-ern Mississippi in 2013 and has worked previously for the Flowood Public Library as a Children’s Su-pervisor Assistant and Reference Li-brarian. She has also worked at the

Delta State University Library as a Reference Librarian and an Access Services Librarian. She has present-ed at various conferences and has had various articles published. She is looking forward to this next stage in her life.

—◆—Dr. Sheila Morgan, Instruction-

al Technologist, joined the Millsaps College Library staff in October. Sheila has a Ph. D. in instructional technology from the University of Alabama, and bachelor’s and mas-ter’s degrees from MSU. She man-ages Course Connect (the Moo-dle-based LMS), supports faculty instructional technology needs, and provides reference and library in-struction services.

—◆—Julia M. Rholes, Dean of Librar-

ies at the University of Mississippi, is retiring at the end of December after twelve years of service to the University. She can be credited with the creation of a Library Annex for the storage of archival materials and lesser used collections. This helped free up space to transform the li-brary to better meet the needs of the students and faculty. She led several renovation projects, including the

People In The Newscreation of several commons spaces, and a crowdfunding initiative that built StudioOne, a one stop video re-cording and editing studio. The ad-dition of comfortable seating and a coffee shop created a welcoming en-vironment for the students. Rholes also oversaw the growth of critical research collections and the digiti-zation of many archival and accoun-tancy collections. Angela Barlow Brown, director of development for special projects at UM, said, “I love her passion for serving the students. She wants only the best for them that she can provide as a dean and as a library team member.” The Uni-versity of Mississippi is thankful for her dedication to the library and we wish her the best in retirement.

—◆—

It is with great sadness that we in-form you of the death of Mr. Billy Beal, who served on the MLA Exec-utive Board in the position of ALA Councilor.

The Meridian Community College held a memorial service for Vice-President Billy Beal on

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 17

Thursday, December 10 in the Mc-Cain Theater. Mr. Beal’s visitation was at Berry & Gardner Funeral Home on Sunday evening Decem-ber 13. The funeral service was De-cember 14 at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Meridian.

A native of Meridian, Beal held an A.B. from Loyola University of Chicago and an M.S. in library science from Simmons College in Boston. After his academic studies at Simmons, he returned to Merid-ian where he became circulation librarian at MCC. During his ten-ure at the College, he served as Self Study Title III director, acquisitions

librarian, ACE/HEMI coordinator, computer-assisted instruction su-pervisor and head librarian, as well as chairman of the Student Appeals Committee.

He has been the recipient of the John Johnson, Lamplighter and Em-ployee of the Month awards as well as installed into the Talon Club, which salutes MCC employees who have served the College for 30-plus years.

Off campus, Beal was a trustee for the Mississippi Heritage Trust, was president of the Lauderdale Coun-ty Mental Health Association and was a commissioner on the Historic

Meridian Commission. Additional-ly, Beal was a member of the Amer-ican Library Association, and the Mississippi Library Association. Beal also served as organist at St. Jo-seph Catholic Church.

A founding member for the Me-ridian Council for the Arts, Beal was a former board member of the Meridian Symphony Orchestra. He was also a board member of the Me-ridian Historic Foundation, which became the Grand Opera House, now known as the Mississippi State University Riley Center.

News BriefsSarah Mangrum

Access Services Librarian / Assistant Clinical Professor

University of Southern Mississippi

Documentary Casts An “EYE” On Mississippi History

The Mississippi State University Libraries sponsored a screening of the new documentary “Bill Minor: Eyes on Mississippi,” which sheds light on the historic career of vet-eran journalist Bill Minor, on Tues-day, October 27 at 2 p.m. in the John Grisham Room in Mitchell Memo-rial Library.

The one-hour film covers key moments in Civil Rights history from Minor’s first-hand perspec-tive. Minor was the New Orleans Times-Picayune Mississippi cor-respondent throughout the Civil Rights era. He contributed fre-quently to The New York Times, Newsweek and other national out-lets and covered controversial issues of racial inequality in an era when most Southern journalists would

not touch them. Minor worked for the Times-Picayune from 1947 until 1976, when the newspaper closed its Mississippi office. He then pur-chased a weekly newspaper, The Capitol Reporter, where he con-tinued investigative reporting that sometimes cost him advertising dollars and threatened his personal safety.

Minor’s newspaper proved un-profitable, and he had to shut it down after six years. However, he continued writing his "Eyes On Mis-sissippi" column. At 93, Minor still covers the state politics and other topics of interest, and his syndicated political column appears in a num-ber of Mississippi newspapers.

Appearing in the film are Justice Department attorney John Doar, New York Times civil rights journal-ist Claude Sitton, Myrlie Evers, Jack-son physician Robert Smith, former Gov. William Winter, Times-Pica-yune editor Jim Amoss and Pulitzer Prize winner Hank Klibanoff. The

film features photos and news foot-age from 15 U.S. Archives.

Director and Producer Ellen Ann Fentress, with Lida Gibson as film editor and co-writer, finished “Eyes on Mississippi” after five years of production. Support for the produc-tion came from the Mississippi Hu-manities Council, the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson and private donors who admire Minor’s work.

According to Fred Smith, MSU Libraries Rare Book Coordina-tor “Bill Minor has been covering Mississippi politics since the death of Theodore Bilbo. His coverage of politics and the Civil Rights era was often viewed as controversial, but it was always fair and accurate. Bill Minor’s exceptional collection of papers and artifacts are an im-portant part of the extensive and nationally significant journalism collection housed in Special Collec-tions in Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University.”

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 18

Bill Minor as well as director, pro-ducer Ellen Ann Fentress attended the screening and were a part of the program.

Submitted by Angela Patton Library AssociateMississippi State University Libraries

—◆—Community Forum: “’A Shaky Truce’: Civil Rights Struggles In Starkville, Ms, 1960-1980”

On Thursday, October 29th, rep-resentatives from the MSU History Department and the MSU Librar-ies hosted a community forum on the history of Starkville’s civil rights movement at the Hilton Garden Inn of Starkville, MS. The forum was a culmination of the work produced from the Starkville Civil Rights proj-ect, which began as a partnership in the summer of 2014. This event was funded by the Mississippi Human-ities Council.

The forum debuted a new digital history website (http://starkvilleciv-ilrights.msstate.edu) on Starkville’s civil rights movement that includes a searchable collection of oral his-tory interviews with local Starkville participants, archival documents from the Mississippi State Univer-sity Libraries and other collections, and classroom resources developed with Mississippi teachers in mind. Hillary Richardson, MSU Libraries Humanities Librarian, welcomed the audience and introduced and Dr. Stuart Rockoff of the Mississippi

Humanities Council; Nickoal Eich-mann, MSU Libraries History Librarian, gave a preview of the website and highlighted its unique features, and Dr. Judith Ridner, As-sociate Professor of History, pre-sented on some of the themes from the oral histories themselves.

The forum also featured a panel of historians and project partic-ipants who discussed Starkville’s movement and its importance in Mississippi and the nation. Panel-ists included Dr. Michael Vinson Williams, Dean of Social Sciences at Tougaloo College; Dr. Stephanie Rolph of Millsaps College; Dr. Shir-ley Hanshaw of Mississippi State University, who was interviewed for the project; Mr. Chris Taylor, President of the Oktibbeha County chapter of the NAACP, who was also interviewed for the project; and Mr. Nick Timmerman of Mississippi State University, project staff mem-ber and moderator of the panel.

Following the program, audience members had the chance to inter-act with the Starkville Civil Rights Website and to record their own brief memories of Starkville's civil rights movement for future inclu-sion in the site. Recording equip-ment for the forum was purchased through an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant made avail-able through the Mississippi Library Commission as a part of the Missis-sippi Library Leadership Institute. The forum was made possible by a

grant from the Mississippi Human-ities Council, through support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Hu-manities or the Mississippi Human-ities Council.

The representatives from the MSU History department and Li-braries are still actively interviewing those who may remember or have participated in Civil Rights strug-gles in and around Starkville, MS. If you would like to be interviewed, or if you would like to refer some-one else who might be interested in participating in an interview, please email starkvillecivilrights@lists.ms-state.edu or call (662) 325-2838.

Photo by: Megan Bean, Mississippi State University

Submitted byHillary RichardsonAssistant Professor, Humanities Librarian, Honors College Librarian, Service-Learning LibrarianMississippi State University Libraries

To join MLA, or to renew your membership:

http://misslib.org/membership

2015 MLA Executive Board Minutes:

http://misslib.org/Meeting-Minutes-2015

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 19

The 2015 Mississippi Library As-sociation Annual Conference with the theme “Stronger Together” was held October 20-23rd at the Nat-chez Convention Center. The con-ference this year focused on ways in which libraries of all types can work together towards a shared goal and provided development and net-working opportunities for us to be-come stronger as professionals.

There were 388 librarians and li-brary staff participants and 45 indi-viduals registered as vendors – for a total of 433 in attendance. There were 86 school librarians in atten-dance this year. This number is dou-ble the number in attendance last year. Many thanks go to the Missis-sippi Department of Education and our School library section for help-ing us increase our school librarian participation. We processed 87 con-tinuing education credits.

The conference included ap-proximately seventy programs, workshops, and events, and sixteen peer-reviewed poster sessions were presented, making it a well-rounded conference. Twenty-seven vendors participated in the exhibit hall and we received financial support from Platinum Sponsors: EBSCO, Sirsi-Dynix and Boopsie; Gold Sponsors: Library Interiors, Friends of Mis-sissippi Libraries, Inc, and Friends of Columbus Lowndes Public Li-brary; Silver Sponsors: Friends of the Waynesboro-Wayne County Li-brary, Taylor and Francis Group and Cartwright Estate Liquidation, Inc.

We appreciate their con-tinued support of MLA. The MLA conference is partially funded by the federal Library Services and Technology Act ad-ministered by the Mis-sissippi Library Com-mission for the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We would not have been be able to bring in the nationally recog-nized speakers that were featured in 2015 without this funding.

We are happy to report that MLA Silent Auction donations were in the amount of $1697.00 and that money will be split between the Virgia Brocks-Shedd and Peggy May Scholarships. MLA Presidential Bash made $826.00 which will also be split between the two scholarships.

The conference featured an app provided by Boopsie for Libraries and a new ‘schedule at a glance’ to help attendees navigate the packed schedule. A bus was provided for travel from the conference hotels.

Evaluations of the conference were sent in electronically and results from 126 people that re-sponded will help us plan future conferences.

Tuesday, October 20The conference kicked off with a

Pre-Conference featuring Tameka Tobias Smith from the National Al-liance on Mental Illness. Ms. Smith presented a program on serving li-brary patrons that may be in distress

and 71 people were in attendance.There were some issues beyond

the control of our vendor and our Dutch Treat Dinner and Evening Tour of Natchez did not unfold ex-actly as we had planned. Those at-tending the Tuesday evening events were contacted and given credits for part of their participation fees.

Wednesday, October 21 Wednesday is the traditional start

of conference and this year Wednes-day was packed with programming. Southern Miss SLIS hosted its an-nual Alumni breakfast with 44 in attendance. The School Library section had two well-received pro-grams by Tiffany Whitehead, school librarian at Central Middle in Baton Rouge. The ACRL featured speaker was Jaena Alabi who spoke about the benefits of diversity in academic libraries. Our first General Session

2015 MLA Annual Conference Wrap UpMolly McManus

Systems LibrarianU.S. Army Engineer Research and

Development Center

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 20

began with an MLA business meet-ing and featured a well-attended program by Josh Hanagarne, author of The World’s Strongest Librarian. The annual “Afternoon with Au-thors” featured Matthew Guinn and Jamie Kornegay.

This year we were honored to help celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Library Science Master’s Pro-gram at The University of Southern Mississippi. There were over 100 in attendance at a special reception hosted by USM-SLIS on Wednesday afternoon.

The President’s Reception and Scholarship Bash was held at Mag-nolia Hall. Due to some circum-stances beyond the control of our vendor, this event was not exactly as planned and credits were given to attendees. The event was in a beau-tiful home and we were able to raise over $800 for the scholarship.

Thursday, October 22 Thursday began with Breakfast

with author Patricia Neely-Dors-ey, sponsored by the Public Library Section. The Trustee Section hosted a Library Trustee Academy featur-ing Donna McDonald is the Di-rector of the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System who is the past president of United for Librar-ies. The Black Caucus invited author and motivational speaker Tom-mie Mabry for their luncheon. The Young People’s Services Roundta-ble (YPSRT) hosted a luncheon and panel discussion with youth librari-ans Judy Card, Venetia Oglesby and Mary Seratt.

We were lucky to have two Gen-eral Sessions on Thursday. Todd Bol, creator and executive director of Little Free Library, was sponsored by the Special Libraries Section. Michelle Frisque, Chief, Technol-ogy Content and Innovation from

Best Effort by an Individual Library to Publicize Library Services Around a Single Theme or Event (2 awards) University of Southern Mississippi Libraries - Jennifer Brannock & Special Collections University of Southern Mississippi Libraries - Elena Azadbakht & Jennifer Brannock

Best Coordinated Effort of Several Libraries to Publicize Library Services Around a Single Theme or Event Hattiesburg Public Library & University of Southern Mississippi Libraries - Jennifer Brannock and Sean Farrell Accepted by Jennifer Brannock and Pamela Pridgen

Best Year-Round Effort by an Individual Library to Publicize Library Services in General Lafayette County & Oxford Public Library - Member of the First Regional Library System. Accepted by Corey Vinson

Mississippi Library Champion Award Ed Ward - M.R. Davis Public Library Volunteer, First Regional Library System Nominated and accepted by Caroline Barnett Best Year Round Coordinated Effort by a Group of Libraries to Publicize Library Services in General First Regional Library System Accepted by David Brown

Award Winners[ \Peggy May Award Sarah Mangrum - Cook Library, The University of Southern Mississippi Li-braries. Nominated by Emilie Aplin

Mary Julia Anderson Martha Lawson - Rosedale & Gunnison Public Libraries, Bolivar County Library System. Nominated by Jennifer Wann, Tamara Blackwell, Sharon Williamson, & Rebecca Lewis

An award accepted by Bethany Carlisle Best Newsletter Submitted by a Library Group (Not Pictured) Laurel-Jones County Library System Accepted by Mary Louise Breland

the Chicago Public Library spoke about CP’s Internet to Go program which provides Wi-Fi hotspots for checkout.

The Mississippi Authors Awards on Thursday evening honored three Mississippi authors. Recognized for a youth non-fiction work was Carolyn J. Brown for her second biography, Song of My Life: A Bi-ography of Margaret Walker, pub-lished in November 2014. John Hailman was the non-fiction win-ner for his book Midnight to Gun-town. The fiction winner was Carey Richard for The Poppy Field Diary, which was accepted by his wife while he was out of the country.

Friday, October 23 The MLA Awards Brunch marked

the traditional end of this confer-ence. A number of awards were pre-sented to worthy MLA members.

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 21

Photographs by Antoinette GiamalvaAwards presented by Ellen Ruffin

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 22

Book ReviewsMichele Frasier-Robinson

Librarian for Education & Psychology

University of Southern Mississippi

Beck, Allisa L. Images of America: Long BeachCharleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2015. 128 pp. $21.99 (paperback)

Regularly devastated by hur-ricanes, especially Katrina, Long Beach is a town founded on fertile ground and plentiful fishing that has persisted and thrived in spite of such hardships. This softcover book tells the history of this remarkable gulf community through the group-ing of over 200 vintage photographs, many published for the first time, and accompanying descriptive notes into eight topic headings important to the area: Early Settlers; The Beach; Education; Gulf Park College for Women; Agriculture and Business; Churches; Hurricanes; and Leisure and Everyday Life. As you progress through the book you learn that Long Beach was once known as the “Radish Capital of America” because of their Long Beach Long Reds and known as well for the bounty of fruit and other vegetables harvested from their orchards and truck farming – until the Depression put an end to the industry. After that, the area turned to tourism and the cultiva-tion of summer residents to sustain the economy.

In keeping with Arcadia Pub-lishing’s practice of employing local authors to capture the history and charm of a given area, Long Beach is authored by Long Beach resident Allisa L. Beck, a Pascagoula native

and alumna of both the University of South Alabama and the Univer-sity of Southern Mississippi. While interviewing local residents and compiling their photographs, Beck created an archive for the Long Beach Historical Society, which will receive a portion of the profits from the sale of the book.

Arcadia Publishing’s stated mis-sion is to create high-quality histori-cal publications in small local niches that are available to the general pub-lic and it succeeds admirably with this volume. The book, like other volumes in the series, is not a com-prehensive history of Long Beach, nor is it meant to be, but rather it is a scrapbook that captures the es-sence and changes that have taken place there over a period of time. As generations pass and personal memories fade, the importance of preserving – and publishing – pho-tographs as important links to and records of the past is imperative. In-deed, the press release from Arcadia Publishing notes the importance of some of the photographs included in this volume as they are the only remaining record of sites that were destroyed by hurricanes.

Images of America: Long Beach is a delightful and informative look at bygone days, places, and people. I would recommend this book for all public libraries and the general pub-lic, especially those with an interest in local history.

Tamara D. BlackwellReference ServicesBolivar County Library System

—◆—

Boggan, Lottie Brent Streams of Mercy: A Seasoned South-ern Broad’s Musings & Meditations on God, Dogs and Pooperscooper-ing—in other words, LifeQueen’s Hill Press, 2012. 190 pp.

Adopting a rescue dog named June Cleaver changed Lottie Brent Boggan’s life. In Streams of Mercy, Boggan recounts moments she and husband Willard have shared with “The Cleave.” As recue animals so often do, June Cleaver nudged her way into the Boggans’ household and changed things forever. Ped-icures and beauty parlor appoint-ments are replaced by trips to the pharmacy for dog medicine, shop-ping lists dominated by dog-relat-ed items, and early morning walks. Those who consider their dogs to be members of the family will find it perfectly natural that Boggan has provided a voice, and converses with, June Cleaver.

The time spent walking with June Cleaver proves ripe for reflection and meditation. Intermixed with tales of adventure and mishap, Bog-gan reflects on life, relatives, and re-ligion. She shares photos from her past to accompany her nostalgic musings. These walks also provide Boggan with time to flesh out ideas for an adventure with “The Cleave”: a long-distance walk that spans multiple states. Boggan finds her stride as a writer in these moments. It is especially touching to read about time spent with family long ago. Her voice takes on a scheming, determined tone when describing plans for her adventure with June Cleaver. There is a certain balance

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 23

between the occasionally melan-choly stories from the past and the energetic, strong-willed approach to the prospect of something out of the ordinary to break the monotony of the daily neighborhood walks.

Lottie Brent Boggan is a Missis-sippi author from the Jackson area. Her other titles include Redemp-tion Ridge, Come Up Churning and Keep Your Buckets High, and Mad Dogs & Moonshine: Other Stories with a Taste of the South (with Judy H. Tucker). She also contributed to Fireflies in Fruit Jars: More Sto-ries with a Taste of the South. Her memoir, Streams of Mercy, may be of interest to those whose lives have been changed by a rescue animal; however, anyone who has longed for something a bit different from the everyday grind—and made it a reality—can find enjoyment in this book.

Emilie AplinEvening SupervisorJoseph Anderson Cook LibraryUniversity of Southern Mississippi

—◆—Cole, BobbyThe Rented MuleSeattle, WA: Thomas & Mercer, 2014. 502 pp. $14.95 (Paperback)

The Rented Mule is set in and around Montgomery, Alabama, and follows Cooper Dixon who is in the throes of your average middle-age crisis. His seemingly vapid wife neglects him, his business partner wants to sell their advertising agen-cy and he is lusting after a receptive young graphic designer. Unfortu-nately for Cooper, circumstances take a turn for the worse when his wife is kidnapped and he is framed for the crime. Told in alternating

viewpoints, The Rented Mule is your standard race against the clock thriller as Cooper fights to find out who masterminded his wife’s kid-napping and to clear his name.

Unfortunately, Bobby Cole’s un-refined writing style does little to engage readers. The writing is clunky and fails to generate interest in any of the shallowly written char-acters that populate the book. The characters are the most exasperating element of this story. Bobby Cole’s characters are clichés that have had personality quirks tacked onto them in an attempt to make them inter-esting, and it does not work. The dialog and attempts at recreating a regional Southern dialect are poorly executed and grate upon the reader; with the elderly African American housekeeper’s vernacular partic-ularly disagreeable. There is little nuance to the story as the author explicitly describes every character and their intentions instead of let-ting their actions influence the story organically. The overall effect of clumsy writing, clichéd characters, and trite dialog dampens the story’s already overstretched plot. At 502 pages long, the plot is overextended and the first half of the book fails to build suspense. The ending, which rapidly escalates the action, fails to offer a satisfying conclusion to a confusing and frustrating read.

I would only recommend this book to public libraries with a large demand for locally written or South-ern set fiction.

Erica McCaleb Reader’s Advisor Mississippi Library Commission - Talking Book Services

—◆—

McMullan, MargaretAftermath LoungeCalypso Editions, 2015. 143 pp. $16.99 (paperback)

Margaret McMullan has written a collection of short stories that illus-trate life around Hurricane Katrina. A few of the stories are set before, but most are set after the hurricane and evoke a strong will to survive. It starts with one strand connecting the stories and finishes by weaving a full web.

The stories artfully portray the effects that Katrina had on all peo-ple in its path and there is a central theme built around an older cou-ple, Paul and Mary Zimmer, their daughter, Diane and her son, Teddy. Ms. McMullan shares glimpses of their lives before the storm, living on the beach in Pass Christian. The life after the storm stories are poi-gnant and bring to life the reality of insurance companies and re-build-ing efforts. The stories of Catch, the Zimmer’s yard man, add another dimension to the web and the one about Catch’s ex-wife, Norma, bring it full circle. It seems that every per-son living on the coast knows some-one who died, someone who moved away, and someone who stayed to rebuild.

Margaret McMullan is the author of six award winning titles including Sources of Light and How I Found the Strong. She currently holds the Melvin Peterson Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing at the Uni-versity of Evansville in Indiana and is a two time Mississippi Library As-sociation Author Award winner.

This book is meant for an adult audience and is highly recommend-ed for academic and public libraries.

Mississippi Libraries Vol. 78 No. 4 • Winter 2015 Page 24

Marty ColemanAssistant ProfessorMississippi State University

—◆—Meek, Edwin E. RIOT: Witness to Anger and Change Oxford, MS: Yoknapatawpha Press, 2015. 147 pp. $35.95 (hardback).

Edwin E. Meek’s book RIOT: Wit-ness to Anger and Change chronicles an episode of upheaval and tense race relations in 1960s Mississippi. This book contains 120 black and white photographs from Edwin E. Meek, who was formerly a student at The University of Mississippi and a photographer for University Public Relations. The photographs were taken while he was a student and focus on September 30, 1962, the day James Meredith was the first student of color to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Racial tensions were so high that a battal-ion of United States Marshals were sent by President John F. Kennedy to protect Meredith as he arrived on campus to enroll. Masses of students and onlookers showed up to watch or to express their displeasure at Ole Miss integrating. The mass of peo-ple began to get violent and mar-shals, who had showed up in riot gear with tear gas guns, helmets, and some with pistols, attempted to restore order. Several people were killed and over one hundred were injured or wounded. The school and the people wanted to cling to their

longstanding practice of segrega-tion, but the tides were changing in the country and apparently in Mis-sissippi. After several unsuccessful attempts, James Meredith was final-ly enrolled at The University of Mis-sissippi. He went on to graduate in 1963.

This is a good informational book that gives a great visual documenta-tion of James Meredith’s enrollment, and the integration of The Univer-sity of Mississippi. This book would make for a good addition to any library collecting information on Mississippi history or the American Civil Rights Movement.

Jennifer R. CulleyAcquisitions LibrarianThe University of Southern Mississippi

—◆—Taylor-Perry, JanetHeartlessCreate Space Independent Publish-ing Platform, 2014. 224 pp. $11.39 (paperback)

Laurel native Janet Taylor-Per-ry’s Heartless is the second book in The Raiford Chronicles series, it is set in a small Louisiana town and takes place seventeen years after Lucky Thirteen (the first book in the series). It continues the story of Police Chief Ray Reynolds and his family. The author places the story in the year 2022. For me, stating the date, 2022 made me look for evi-dence that the story occurred at that

time. However, I found very little evidence to support a future world. Had the author simply stated that it was “seventeen years later,” I would have accepted the setting as written.

Heartless is a fast paced mystery with a sweet romance, a few super-natural elements, and some religious overtones. The author’s portrayal of the characters makes them ap-pealing to the reader, and the story line is engaging. In the author’s first book, Lucky Thirteen, the dialogue seemed stilted and the pacing was uneven. With Heartless, however, the dialogue flowed more easily and the pacing was unobtrusive, as good writing should be.

I know that you should never judge a book by its cover but if I had picked this book up in a bookstore I would have hastily put it back down. I found the cover to be too graphic and disturbing. This book deserves a better cover that better represents the story and does not send per-spective readers fleeing in disgust.

I found Heartless to be a fun read, and I look forward to reading the next book in The Raiford Chronicles series, Broken. This is recommended for an adult readership and all pub-lic libraries.

Sheryl StumpCataloger/ProfessorDelta State University